NUM slams troubled Aurora mine

Emerging gold mining company Aurora Empowerment Systems - under the stewardship of President Jacob Zuma's nephew Khulubuse Zuma and Nelson Mandela's grandson Zondwa Mandela - has been accused of running their operations "like a spaza shop".

Aurora, which secured the mining operations from junior miner Pamodzi Gold eight months ago, announced on Friday that its East Rand operations would shed 1440 jobs.

About 2300 disgruntled workers downed tools on Friday morning after they were only paid 15% and later 8% of their wages for February. They are also unsure whether they will receive their March salaries.

Frasy Namanyana, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) chairman at Aurora East Rand, said: "It is clear that they don't know the laws stating that you can't retrench without sitting down with the unions and discussing the issue."

When Aurora took over from Pamodzi last October, the liquidators said R200-million of the purchase amount would be funded by Aurora's Malaysian counterpart, AM Equity, which would also make another R150-million available for capital expenditure on the mines.

At the time, about 1600 miners were expected to be employed immediately with the rest of East Rand's 3800 employees returning a month later.

Fazel Bhana, Aurora's management adviser, said after the "restructuring", they would be left with almost 1000 workers at the East Rand operation. But he promised to re-employ the retrenched workers in a few months' time.

Bhana said their international consortium of funders from New York and London were in South Africa to finalise the handover deal for Aurora so that it gets full ownership of the mines.

Aurora chief executive Zondwa Mandela said in a statement that the restructuring would allow the mine to become profitable and cash-flow positive from the end of May.

"Aurora will also then be in a position to recapitalise shaft by shaft," Mandela said.

NUM's national office criticised the company's "take it or leave it attitude".